A conspiracy theory made to order

[jbor]

For the first few months after Sept. 11 the zealots' arguments were that the
U.S. deserved it, that the attacks were due to bad karma, that ten and a
half million or so innocent Afghanis were about to be killed, that the only
reason the U.S. and its allies went after Al Qaeda was so that an oil
pipeline could be built from the Caspian Sea across Afghanistan and then
into the Bush family compound in Texas, and so forth, and because of one or
a combination of these things Americans should just accept the attacks and
let things be and learn the lesson that everyone else hates them simply
because they're rich and American. Bush was the villain then because he was
deliberately murdering Afghani babies and so forth. Anyone who dared say
otherwise was declared to be neo-fascist, or worse. Now, because all those
arguments have proven to be absurd, the focus has switched to say that Bush
was somehow responsible for the 11/9 attacks in the first place, that it has
all just been part of some evil conspiracy. There's no recognition that all
the other bullshit was just bullshit, just a smooth, self-righteous slide
into these totally contradictory arguments, which are just as much bullshit
as the other ones were. The only consistent thing about any of it has been
the tone of moral indignation, and the name-calling, but all that's just
window dressing too of course, because the real issue is that last U.S.
election. That's why it all comes down to being a "Bush supporter" or not.
More than anything it's that which I find repulsive, the way that the
terrible deaths of thousands and thousands of people in both the attacks and
the subsequent campaign against the terrorist groups who launched the
attacks were just so much fodder for this sort of petty domestic political
pamphleteering.

The French conspiracy theory is ludicrous of course, but it also beats me
how it could be down to *Bush's* negligence alone when bin Laden and Al
Qaeda had already bombed the WTC and that U.S. embassy in Africa during
earlier presidential terms.

I'm not interested in any of the party political hand-wringing and
mud-slinging. Bush is the President of the U.S. Whether one approves of that
or doesn't is totally immaterial; it just has to be accepted (call it karma
if it helps), and *respected* as a *fact*. The biggest concern after Sept.
11 was that the U.S. response would be to nuke Afghanistan and cause
something like WW3. After a few weeks when it became clear that the U.S.
Administration was holding off and firming up diplomatic alliances in both
the West and East - attempting to negotiate with the Taliban even - the next
major concern was that they would wait too long and let the terrorists off
scot free, which would have legitimised terrorism as a political instrument.
It could have turned out far far worse than it did. And I doubt whether Gore
or anyone else would have done things any differently at all, but wondering
about that's just pissing in the wind too.

best


on 23/6/02 8:07 AM, Michael Kenny at mikenny79 at hotmail.com wrote:

> My problem is the president of the US would be a major target of a big
> terrorist attack.  Wouldn't it be self-interest to crack down on them?  To
> me the most obvious answer is poor organization of information.  Also, when
> people suggested such attacks could happen, they didn't get much attention.
> I think it reflects the American public's general sense of invulnerability
> to attack prior to 9-11.  If the public isn't interested, the politicians
> probably won't be either.